But she said some of the social worker’s actions in the scenes involving Stacey, played by Lacey Turner, were “wrong, and in places unlawful”.

She complained that the depiction of the social worker “was quite the cardboard cut-out” and that the dramatic action was “legally questionable, unlikely, but not impossible in the real world”.

She called for “the depiction of social work and the social worker” to be “more positive”.

But a spokeswoman for EastEnders said the BBC One soap had worked with a social worker on the scenes.

“EastEnders takes great care when portraying serious issues such as these and we worked closely with experts in the field including a social worker and police advisers to ensure the storyline was portrayed as accurately as possible,” the statement said.

“At no point was it our intention to portray social workers in a bad light, in fact, it was clear that the social worker simply wanted what was best for the children.”